DESCRIPTION: The broad objectives of this SBIR are to develop, produce, and market a computer software package for the study and analysis of mortality in rapidly aging societies. Novel features of this package include the range and quality of the data, thorough coverage of old-age (80 +) mortality; sophisticated tools for comparison, analysis, sensitivity analysis, decomposition; newly developed models for mortality pattern and trends; and the packaging of these features in an interactive, graphical software program to run on personal computers. Specific goals of this Phase I application are: (a) to organize, document, and standardize a mortality data base, extending it where necessary and possible; (b) to put existing analytical tools into a standardized C language format, compile and test these as components on Windows 95/NT platforms, and document them; (c) develop a complete software design (features, GUIs, libraries, data base structure, linking, on-line help features, size estimates) using an evolutionary design approach; (d) prepare a complete, carefully organized specification of the final product including drafts of a user manual and a technical manual for the product and a product specification. PROPOSED COMMERCIAL APPLICATION: The proposed project will make available recent data and analytical techniques for the modeling of mortality and mortality change. The software to be developed will allow demographers, economists, and other researchers to answer many substantive and analytical questions. The market we aim to serve consists of analysts, researchers, and students in many fields including actuarial science, business, demography, economics, finance, gerontology, public finance, public health, public policy and sociology.